Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

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Xizorz
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Xizorz »

Scopar wrote:Now you're just being ridiculous...
Xizorz wrote:The kids at VA tech on 4/15/2001 thought a threat wasn't imminent.
Actually if the family and school had followed the warning signs, there's a chance that it wouldn't have happened. It was an imminent threat, just nobody looked at the warning signs that there was a psychopath left untreated in a college.
The United States on 9/10/2001 thought a threat wasn't imminent.
The 9/11 commission already concluded that the threat was imminent and it was a failure of bureaucracy that allowed the attack to happen.

The first case has something to do with gun control, but more to do with people not following warning signs. The second is 100% unrelated.

You really aren't providing very much logic, only emotion, which counts for diddly squat to anyone you're trying to convince... or at least a rational person like me.
You so called 'rational' position is nothing more than 20/20 hindsight. But the rest of us don't have your precognitive vision.

People are not perfect. We know we don't know everything, hence there's nothing irrational about being prepared. You're the so called rational person who places absolute trust in beings and institutions you know to be flawed, and wants to leave your safety to, as you put it, 'chance'.
Scopar
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Scopar »

I don't get it... are you saying we shouldn't learn from our mistakes?
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Azurai
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Azurai »

I still don't really understand what point you're trying to make. There are and will always be a lot of guns in the US. It will never be impossible for people to get a gun if they want one. People still get them in the UK, that's why they have armed response units in the Yard.

I can guarantee you if you hear glass breaking at 3am and you reach for a telephone to dial 911 instead of a pistol or shotgun, you are in fact less safe. There is no possible argument you could make that could logically convince someone that being unarmed and at the complete mercy of an unknown assailant is somehow safer than being armed and able to drop them. If people are going to commit felonies, they're going to do it regardless of whether or not you have a gun.

Where I live, it can take the cops 10-30 minutes to get to my house. Burglars are typically opportunistic around here and will rarely enter a house. If they do, there's usually homicides or rape. That's just the way it is. If someone breaks into my house, I will endeavor to kill them because they A) know people are home (we have multiple cars outside) and B) didn't care or wanted there to be victims. That makes them dangerous.
--Azurai

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greekrefugee
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by greekrefugee »

lol
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Shmern
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Shmern »

When the good guys and bad guys both have guns, and we make the good guys get rid of all their guns...How does this make us safer exactly? :roll:

I lived in Taiwan for the first eight years of my life. What with the martial law over there they had extreme gun control. The absolutely inevitable result was that only criminals had guns.

There was once an instance in which someone tried to break into my family's apartment in Taiwan. Thankfully my mother had the foresight to get this huge steel door that was impossible to break through. So the guy just went across the hallway to another apartment and broke in there. He ended up scoring $20,000 from the family living there by threatening to kill them. Guess what? He had a fucking gun.
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Aus
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Aus »

That was an adorable post that didn't respond to the actual topic in the OP at all.
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Shmern
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Shmern »

Aus wrote:That was an adorable post that didn't respond to the actual topic in the OP at all.
Neither did the last ten posts. But you are right of course, please excuse my off topic post. :oops:
Iniliara
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Iniliara »

We've had reasonably strict firearm laws here (Australia) for the last decade and a bit (assault weapon, automatic and semi-automatic weapon ban, stringent licensing and storage requirements), which have resulted in a reduction of firearm ownership from 7% to 5% of the population since introduction. The laws came after a 35-person killing spree in Tasmania.

The first thing of note with our firearm laws is that our homicide rate has gone down, but not at a rate any more significant than it was declining pre-firearm laws. To me, all that says is that here, people out to kill someone are going to do it whether they can use a gun or not. The gun laws haven't changed anything there.

Next up, burglary. A lot of people seem to be quite adamant about defending their family and all that as a reason for firearms. Here are a few statistics of note from Australia since the laws:

10% of shootings are carried out by licensed weapons (ie, 90% unlicensed / stolen).
Average of 3.3% of homes have an attempted break-in per 12 month period.
44% of robberies involve a weapon of some sort.
7% of robberies involve a firearm ("involve" meaning the burglar carried one, not necessarily shooting anyone with it").
The number of robberies involving a firearm has dropped from mid-20% figures pre-laws.

So right there we've got a substantial drop in the number of armed robberies using firearms. Given the emotive responses about defending one's family that have come up with this thread, this seems to be a fairly significant impact that to me nullifies many such arguments, at least as they apply to Australia. And to me, that's a positive outcome; I'd much rather face a burglar who isn't armed with a firearm than with, and Australia's gun laws seemed to have made it far less likely that the bugger won't have one.

That's not to say that you'd get the same outcome in other places; obviously, the US in particular has a pretty drastically different cultural and social environment than Australia that would likely negate the possibility of any such outcomes. But as far as Australia is concerned, it seems pretty damned positive.

One thing's for sure at least; the outcome is far from some doomsday scenario where gunbound criminals have free reign of the nation, burgling unchallenged from door to door. In reality, about the same number of burglaries occur, and less of the burglars are armed with guns. By rights, that's not a particularly bad outcome as far as I'm concerned. Of course, that's not touching on ownership rights and the like, but that too is a different case here given we have no constitutional right to arms.

Finally, since the laws were introduced we haven't really had any crazy killing sprees; maybe it's just a fluke and isn't too reflective on the gun laws, though in reality the difficulty of obtaining something to really mow people down with would certainly be making it more difficult than in the past. On that note, the following article hit the news the other day; it's probably biased as hell given the sources (ie, the police), but interesting nevertheless. I can't help but have a laugh at the nerve I'm sure it'd hit with some people given its relationship to the ever-present terry-wrist fearmongering, so here it is:

http://www.smh.com.au/national/could-no ... -ea30.html
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greekrefugee
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by greekrefugee »

Well, I don't see it as a one-to-one relationship. Ie, a criminal that doesn't want the added risk of carrying a firearm in Australia is going to use the next best weapon. Whatever that is. Ninja sword, knife, baseball bat (cricket bat?), whatever. My take is: I don't care what he has. He could have an illegal firearm, or he could have some other weapon. He could have safety scissors for all I care. If it's my life on the line, or my family's (assuming I ever find a woman willing to bear my child), I don't want to wait and see if they have a firearm or not.

See, if firearms are illegal, then I can't have one. The robber might have one. If I decide to have one illegaly, I face serious consequences. The robber doesn't give a fuck about the consequences. I'm at a disadvantage here because I'm a relatively honest citizen, but my country won't let me own a firearm. Will anyone in my family get killed during the robbery? Maybe not. Will a gun have absolutely prevented that? Possibly not. But when the guy coming through my door doesn't give a fuck, why do I have to?

The truth lurking behind gun control law is protecting yourself from people that aren't bound by the same social contract that you are. These are cases and situations that will likely never happen to most people. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to be prepared on the off-chance that it ever actually does. Does that mean you should have a concealed carry on you at all times? I don't know. Probably not. There are obviously ups and downs to both sides, but when the price is honest citizen's lives, I think it's worth it. The nut jobs are going to get weapons somehow. Now, should everyone own a gun? Maybe not. You know, the fuktards that go hunting drunk, or carry fucking pistols in the waistline of their sweatpants and then shoot themselves in the leg while in a club. It's like...fuktards are always there. Doesn't matter what you give them, they'll hurt themselves/someone else. Drunk driving. Power tools. The right to vote. Whatever.

That's the cost of freedom.
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Iniliara
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Iniliara »

greekrefugee wrote:Well, I don't see it as a one-to-one relationship. Ie, a criminal that doesn't want the added risk of carrying a firearm in Australia is going to use the next best weapon. Whatever that is. Ninja sword, knife, baseball bat (cricket bat?), whatever. My take is: I don't care what he has. He could have an illegal firearm, or he could have some other weapon. He could have safety scissors for all I care. If it's my life on the line, or my family's (assuming I ever find a woman willing to bear my child), I don't want to wait and see if they have a firearm or not.

See, if firearms are illegal, then I can't have one. The robber might have one. If I decide to have one illegaly, I face serious consequences. The robber doesn't give a fuck about the consequences. I'm at a disadvantage here because I'm a relatively honest citizen, but my country won't let me own a firearm. Will anyone in my family get killed during the robbery? Maybe not. Will a gun have absolutely prevented that? Possibly not. But when the guy coming through my door doesn't give a fuck, why do I have to?

The truth lurking behind gun control law is protecting yourself from people that aren't bound by the same social contract that you are. These are cases and situations that will likely never happen to most people. That doesn't mean you shouldn't have the right to be prepared on the off-chance that it ever actually does. Does that mean you should have a concealed carry on you at all times? I don't know. Probably not. There are obviously ups and downs to both sides, but when the price is honest citizen's lives, I think it's worth it. The nut jobs are going to get weapons somehow. Now, should everyone own a gun? Maybe not. You know, the fuktards that go hunting drunk, or carry fucking pistols in the waistline of their sweatpants and then shoot themselves in the leg while in a club. It's like...fuktards are always there. Doesn't matter what you give them, they'll hurt themselves/someone else. Drunk driving. Power tools. The right to vote. Whatever.

That's the cost of freedom.
Cricket bat :).

I understand where you're coming from, but ultimately I can't help but look it as a numbers game. If the weapon most likely to cause my death should it be used against me is less likely to be in the hands of the fellow breaking in, my chances of death during burglary are by extension going to be lower. Whether I can more effectively defend myself from a burglar were firearms readily legal is of little consequence to me if I have a statistically lower chance of getting killed as a result of firearms laws. It's purely a matter of probability.

As for the notion of rights; you've mention on a right to be prepared, ostensibly by way of arming oneself as a defense against intruders. For me, the problem is that no such right exists within a vacuum; by exercising any given right, the rights of other individuals or groups are inevitably affected. The question is, how far does any given right go before it's overridden by those other rights, and whose rights are more significant?

In this case, if it could be demonstrated that the lower prevalence of domestic firearms reduced the chance of shootings during burglaries, does the right to "be prepared" trump the broader society's right to safety and security? The answer that Australia has come up with is "absolutely not", and it's a view that's fairly prevalent throughout most of the western world outside of the US. Obviously, it's not something that has a universal answer that's going to be right for all cultures or value systems, but as best I can tell it's been the right one for us.
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Azurai
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Azurai »

Iniliara wrote:Whether I can more effectively defend myself from a burglar were firearms readily legal is of little consequence to me if I have a statistically lower chance of getting killed as a result of firearms laws. It's purely a matter of probability.
Statistics sucks raging donkey dick when you end up being one of the X% though. Also, you probably won't be feeling too well if you end up in a situation where you could have saved a love one with a firearm, even if you are only 1 out of 100,000.
Iniliara wrote:As for the notion of rights; you've mention on a right to be prepared, ostensibly by way of arming oneself as a defense against intruders. For me, the problem is that no such right exists within a vacuum; by exercising any given right, the rights of other individuals or groups are inevitably affected. The question is, how far does any given right go before it's overridden by those other rights, and whose rights are more significant?
Society has no rights, government has no rights, people do. That is the very basis of our government and something often forgotten by our citizens, too. The trick here is by using statistics to model something which is going to be innately so variable that no one model can really illustrate a common trend, some groups like to advocate a conclusion which is nothing more than a logical fallacy. How often do you turn on the television and listen to a news network anchor say baseless things like 'A new study has shown that X begets Y', only to have people spouting the findings at work. Not one person from the news ferret to the editor to the prompter to the host to the listener EVEN LOOKED at the study. Yet everything is touted as fact as long as you hear it in a way which makes some amount of sense to you.
--Azurai

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Iniliara
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Iniliara »

Azurai wrote:Statistics sucks raging donkey dick when you end up being one of the X% though. Also, you probably won't be feeling too well if you end up in a situation where you could have saved a love one with a firearm, even if you are only 1 out of 100,000.
Which is naught but a fallacious appeal to emotion. I'll stick to logic.

Furthermore, you're mischaracterising the response of "I could have saved them with a gun" as being the one that people will naturally come to. Maybe that's the case in the US, but in nations lacking an ingrained gun culture of the scale of that in the United States, more often than not it won't be. The statement makes an implicit assumption that having a firearm at hand would have resulted in a better outcome, which is an assumption that most of we non-Americans simply don't accept.
Society has no rights, government has no rights, people do. That is the very basis of our government and something often forgotten by our citizens, too.
A society is the grouping together of individuals. By a society's "right", I mean the collaborated expression of the rights of the individuals within that society.
The trick here is by using statistics to model something which is going to be innately so variable that no one model can really illustrate a common trend, some groups like to advocate a conclusion which is nothing more than a logical fallacy.
Please explain how crime statistics are so variable that "no one model can really illustrate a common trend". I've read my nation's crime statistics, and they're anything but wildly variable. There are definite, significant trends that are readily observable from year to year.
How often do you turn on the television and listen to a news network anchor say baseless things like 'A new study has shown that X begets Y', only to have people spouting the findings at work. Not one person from the news ferret to the editor to the prompter to the host to the listener EVEN LOOKED at the study. Yet everything is touted as fact as long as you hear it in a way which makes some amount of sense to you.
Not particularly often; the Australian news media (who are themselves nothing special) are a good deal saner than the raving incompetents who like to call themselves the American media. Your point is valid, but as it pertains to this discussion it's little more than a straw man.
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Azurai
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Azurai »

Iniliara wrote: Please explain how crime statistics are so variable that "no one model can really illustrate a common trend". I've read my nation's crime statistics, and they're anything but wildly variable. There are definite, significant trends that are readily observable from year to year.
Very easy: Crimes committed where a gun was in a vehicle owned by the person, even if the vehicle is off-site, is considered an armed offense. Also, how many random rapes in central park do you suppose follow the same principles as bank robberies? You have no idea what the source of those statistics even is. Crimes range from corporate theft to murder to larceny and any one of those can have a secondary charge of committing a felony with a firearm.
--Azurai

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Mirkendargen
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Re: Turn in your neighbor for a $1000..

Post by Mirkendargen »

Having guns on you/in your house is just a matter of responsibility. Some people are responsible enough that it is a benefit to society (or at least does no harm to it), some people are not. There are countless stories of little kids getting into guns in their houses and shooting each other as a game, or someone mistaking a family member for a robber in the night and shooting them, or just losing their temper and doing something terrible with the gun they had at hand. Now you can say "I'm not retarded, I'd never do something like that!" and I completely believe you. But some people are. It's like speed limits. Maybe I have the car and the skills to drive 150MPH on the interstate more safely than some 16 year old bitch talking on her cellphone doing 60. The fact of the matter is, if the speed limit was 150, there would be more traffic accident injuries/deaths, even if none of them were ever my fault. It's bringing laws down to the lowest common denominator, unless some truly accurate test to people's ability/responsibility/temperament can be devised. Now, I'm not necessarily saying people as a whole are less safe with/without gun control laws, that's something for statistics to show. I'm just saying that laws need to reflect what's safer for everyone on average, not just you personally.
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